The instant invention pertains generally to circuit breaker trip units, and specifically to the reporting and logging of circuit breaker trip events.
A common accessory in the circuit breaker industry is a circuit breaker trip unit, which electronically monitors the circuit breaker with which it is associated. When the circuit breaker trips due to an overcurrent, the trip unit can indicate the cause of the trip and the relative overcurrent. This indicated cause of trip can be used to diagnose the circuit fault that caused the breaker trip.
Known circuit breaker trip units typically do not include a real-time clock. Accordingly, it is not generally possible for known trip units to produce a log recording the time at which a given circuit breaker trip event occurred. Such a time record would be useful to analyze and diagnose the fault, as well as to take action on processes or devices that may have been interrupted or affected by the circuit interruption. Accordingly, a need exists in the art for a circuit breaker trip unit with a capability to generate a time-stamped record or log containing entries for each circuit breaker trip event.